


closure

by hyphae



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-31
Updated: 2015-01-31
Packaged: 2018-03-09 19:32:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3261743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyphae/pseuds/hyphae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It sucks having to find out your crush doesn't feel the same way about you, doesn't it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	closure

There it was again. A black blur of a shadow against the trees.  
  
Arcee held her blaster arm at the ready, crouched under the cover of a boulder, and slowly moved forward, darting her optics back and forth. There. A brush of steel on bark, and Arcee was loosing bolts at the black shape, springing out from cover and darting forward through the trees. Her shots went wide, as the target darted as well, a rustling beside her and all around, and Airachnid's mocking laugher rang out from somewhere above.  
  
"Arcee. That's not the sharpshooter I know and love. Don't tell me that hanging out with your autobot friends has made you soft?"  
  
Arcee gritted her teeth. "Not as soft as you're going to be when I pound you into the ground," she shot back, and fired another round of bolts into the trees. Then, there was a telltale whistling sound, and Arcee sprang to the side as a glob of sticky webbing just missed her, and splattered onto the tree trunk she was in front of a nanoklik ago. She aimed her blaster fire toward where the webbing had come from, only to be met with another peal of laughter.  
  
"What's the matter? Lost without all your little friends? Oh, that's right - any bot who gets too close to you doesn't have a very good mortality rate these days, do they?"  
  
Another web shot, from behind her this time. Arcee heard it coming, and rolled quickly to her side, before launching herself after the source of the shot, blasters alight. The shape in the canopy sprang to the left and Arcee followed it, her feet skidding against the dirt and vegetation. Purple blaster shots scorched the earth in front of her, forcing her to change direction, diving behind a ridge for cover once again.  
  
"Too slow." Airachnid was laughing again.  
  
Arcee breathed steadily, waiting for Airachnid to make another move. Few bots were better than Airachnid at an endurance fight, she knew that. Airachnid would keep hidden, launching small attacks to draw out her opponent's strength, until that opponent invariably made a mistake. But, she also knew this about Airachnid - she loved to gloat a little too much.  
  
Sooner or later, she would get careless. And Arcee could play the waiting game, too.  
  
"You know, it's almost disappointing," Airachnid's voice had rung out after a few moments from the trees. "And here I thought you would be putting up more of a fight. I think, after I'm done here, to cheer myself up, I'll go find the other two who bridged here with you - You don't think Starscream would fail to keep them occupied at least for that long, do you? And then, I'll rip out their sparks, and make them watch -"  
  
There she was. In the middle of describing her friends' painful deaths, Airachnid had swung between two branches, close enough for Arcee to see the silhouette arcing in a very predictable curve - and she aimed and fired, two blaster shots, and heard the satisfying sound of bolt on carapace, and Airachnid's startled noise as she tumbled from her swing and fell through the vines. Arcee didn't waste time celebrating the victory. She was immediately hurtling forward into her alt form, wheels bouncing over the uneven terrain as she sped toward her target, which was scrambling away quite gracelessly now, just ahead of her - she could tell by the very loud rustling of bushes. Arcee revved her engine, and drove faster. She was almost upon Airachnid. Just a little bit farther...  
  
And then, the dark shape in the bushes suddenly shot upward, and Arcee reared onto her back wheel and into the air with the momentum from a patch of uneven earth, shifting back into proto-form as she did, her fingers grabbing for her target -  
  
And crashed through the foliage into the thin air of a clearing. Arcee barely had the chance to register her surroundings when a wad of web shot up from the trees to her right, and pinned her outstretched arm against a higher branch. Arcee looked around frantically. The ground at her feet fell away into a sort of depression, and she was dangling by one arm from one of the trees bordering the small dirt-covered clearing. More importantly, as her optics swung around, there were a set of compound violet optics emanating light from the darkness at the other end of the clearing. Arcee started to strain upward with her other arm, shifting it to blade mode to saw at the web - Airachnid was emerging from the trees in the corner of her vision, her blade wouldn't cut through the material fast enough -  
  
And then, everything changed.

  
Something halted Airachnid's progress. She seemed to stop in the middle of walking triumphantly toward Arcee, confused. Then, the strangest thing, she started to tug at her legs, one at a time, and then frantically at all of them, and it was odd enough that Arcee stopped to just look at her.  
  
Before her very eyes, Airachnid was sinking into the ground.  
  
Understanding flashed through Arcee's processors. There were similar hazards back on Cybertron, areas of underdeveloped land where the metal composition yielded a low melting point. The cyberthermal energies flowing underneath such ground made it dangerous for any bot to walk on, for fear of being swallowed whole. The humans had another word for it.

 _Quicksand_.  
  
Arcee freed her arm and landed on the ground beneath her. She tested it, but found it to be sturdy, pebbled ground. Only the middle of the clearing, it seemed, was treacherous. Airachnid was properly panicking by now, having sunk down to the first joint of her appendages. She was trying to shift into her alt form, with little success, as the weight of the sand pulling down on her seemed to be greater than the force of transformation. Arcee watched in fascination for a second, and it was enough for Airachnid to look up suddenly, and meet her blue optics with her own, desperate set.  
  
"Arcee." She gasped.  
  
Arcee met her gaze steadily, and Airachnid seemed to take this as encouragement, and went on breathlessly. "Arcee, I know... we've had our differences in the past, but we can let bygones be bygones, can't we? I mean..." And she took a breath, trying to regain some of her composure. "You wouldn't just watch a helpless bot die." She said darkly, staring Arcee right in the optics.  
  
Arcee thought about all the pain that Airachnid had inflicted on her over the years.

She thought about the time Airachnid dragged Tailgate out to tear out his spark right in front of her. She thought about the days of being kept prisoner, and of being hunted, and how much Airachnid delighted in her fear. And now, this instigator was before her very optics, helpless and heading toward a slow demise.  
  
Arcee turned without a word and walked toward the trees.  
  
"W-Wait!" Airachnid's voice had recovered the timbre of panic. "You're not really going to- You hate me, Arcee! You despise me with every fiber of your being! You can't let me perish like this- Don't you want to kill me yourself?!"  
  
Arcee allowed herself to pause in her stride and turn her head to stare at Airachnid through one cold optic. "I'm not like you," she said. And then she continued walking.  
  
"Arcee!"  
  
The jungle foliage parted easily in front of her. She wondered how Bulkhead and Bumblebee were doing against Starscream and his goons. Had they managed to secure the Iacon artifact?  
  
"Arcee!!"  
  
She hadn't been separated from them that long ago - She should catch them with plenty of time to spare.  
  
" _ARCEE!!!_ "


End file.
